I bought this a little over a year ago, it came w a very lo mile rebuilt 460 and no tranny, the C6 had been pulled for a rebuild that never happened. For awhile I looked for a ZF5, but in the end my concern about the 460's lack of fuel economy made me think of a transplant. Diesel was the way to go. At first it had to be cummins, started out thinking it had to be a 5.9, then worked around to a 4b, one day I ended up on this forum and after reading all the positives about the 7.3s and 6.9s, started thinking that an IDI might be the way to go. Also they were relatively inexpensive, you could get a motor, tranny and tcase for less than the cummins alone. A Craigslist search led me to a rough 93 F250, w a smooth drivetrain 7.3, ZF5 and tcase which cost about 2200 after selling unwanted parts. It is a 59 body, early hiboy frame, 94 1 ton rear, 79 dana44 front and a mix of other Ford parts. Got the fuel lines finished this week, waiting for glow plugs and hoping for a start by the weekend. I'm curious what kind of mileage to expect. Haven't driven it yet and am already starting to think about some power upgrades. The motor has 180k on it and I'm wondering what can be done to it, without hurting reliability.

 

Very cool.project. mpgs should be high teens depending on tire size and such. A turbo is needed to
get any substantial hp gain. Now would be the time to make sure you have enough clearance between the
engine and firewall for the downpipe.

 

That'll be a sweet truck. Also you may need to beef up the front springs with the heavier motor

 

Love that body style, especially in 4wd. I pulled about 18mpg out of my 6.9 NA on the highway, but that was a while back.

That is not a 79 Dana 44 due to the drum brakes.

 

agreed on the front axle. that looks like an old closed knuckle D-44, or it could be one of the napco conversion axles because it also looks like it has the large 6 lug pattern.
either way i would start looking for a 8 lug disc brake front axle and dana 10.25 rear axle.

 

My bad, I had an old pic of the front axle, we changed this about three weeks ago. Rear axle is a LS 10.25.

 

How do I delete that?

 

Thanks pgg, front springs are new, I got them before the diesel, have my fingers crossed.

 

I haven't seen a turbo application on one of these, so not sure how it goes together, had a chance to photo the block/firewall today, what do you think?

 

with one simple step.


































bribe your friendly neighborhood moderator with a bottle of gold label jack daniels and he will take care of it for you!!

 

check between passenger valve cover and firewall. if you have at least 4 inches between the two, the downpipe will fit.

 

Doesn't look good. How's the weather on Elephant Island?
Thanks for getting rid of my goof.

 

colder than a penguins rear end!!


no problem.

where is my bottle of gold label?

 

I am too lazy to do something like that but boy is that a cool project.

 

[QUOTE where is my bottle of gold label? [/QUOTE]

I don't understand it should be there by now.